Mower County transcript. [volume] (Lansing, Minn.) 1868-1915, 1887-08-17
AN EXCURSION TO DEATH,

An excursion to Niagara Falls, projected
by the Toledo, Peoria and Western R. R.,
left Peoria at O'Clock Wednesday evening
carrying 800 passengers, in six sleepers, six
day coaches and chair cars, baggage cars
being added to the train. Every birth was &C.
cupied and in each of the other cars were 60
passengers, the excursionists being drawn
from large area of country about Peoria.
Two engines were employed to draw the
heavy train as it set out on its
long journey intending to cross
the state of Indiana and strike
the Niagara route at Detroit, Mich. The
train passed Chatsworth, Ill.,, II miles from
Peoria, a little after midnight Thursday
morning. without stopping, its momentum
miles from Chatsworth, midway from that
station to Pipers City, Ford Co., Ills, there
is little slough and where the railroad
track crosses a run about ten feet deep and
fifteen feet wide. Over this was stretched
an ordinary wooden trestle bridge, and as
the excursion train came laundering down
on it what was the horror of the engineer
on the front engine when he saw that this
bridge was afire Right up before his eyes
leaped the bright flames, and the next
instant he was among them. There was
no chance to stop.
Had there been warning, it would have
taken half mile to stop that onrushing
mass of wood, iron and humanity, and the
train was within one hundred yards. OF the
red-tongued messengers of death before
they flashed their fatal signals into the en-
gineer's face. But he passed over in safety
the first engine keeping the rails. Az it
could only have been the terrific speed of
tho train which saved the lives of the en-
gineer and his fireman. But the next engine
went down and Instantly the deed Of death
was done. Car crashed into car; coaches
piled one on top of the other, and in the
people found insta int death and many
moro wore SO hurt they could not live. AS
for the wounded, they were everywhere.
The six sleepers escaped but the six
day coaches were telescoped as cars nj yer
we're before, three Of them being pressed in
sengar in the first car met death and
but four people came out alive from the
second one. The bridge was still on fire
and the wrecked ears were laying on and
around the burning embers; the air was
filed with the cries OF the wounded and the
shrieks of those about to die. The groan Of
men, the screams OF women united to make
an appalling sound, and above all could be
heard the agonizing ories OF little children,
as in some instances theElay pinned along
side their parents.
There was no water with which to COM
bat the fire, nothing but the drouth stone
baked earth available, and nothing but the
fingers of few men who retained the pres
ence of mind to work, to dig into the earth
for means to stop the awful fire. Tho tai,
OF the next four hours about that wreck
defies all description, as all around were
men, women aud children who might have
been saved, but who had to meet a most
merciless form of Death. Helpless as were
the workers, heroic work was done and as
sistance was sent as soon as it could
be summoned from Chatsworth, For
est, Pipers City and Peoria. ~
One hundred and eighteen was the awful
poll Of tia dead, while the wounded mum
Der four times as many Tho full tale Of the
dead cannot, however, be told yet for days
Chatsworth was turned into morgue to-
depot were all full of dead bodies, while ev-
cry house in the little village had its quota
of the, wounded. There were over
100 corp,es lying in the extern
porized dead houses, and every man
or woman was turned into an amateur but
jealous nurse. Over in lumber yard the
noise Of hammers and saws rang out in the
air and in it busy carpenters were making
rough collins to carry to their homes the
dead bodies of the excursionists who, twelve
hours previous, had left their homes full of
pleasurhble Expectations Of the enjoyment
they were going Snshave during the vaca-
ton which had begun. :. 5st'22 ].
This tale of horror cannot be closed with
out adding to it a feature that increases it's
disrnay, the robbery OF the dead and dying,
by parties apparently unknown Bodies
were plundered Of watches, money and any
yaluables, even rings being taken from tha